EXCLUSIVE: The Young Mummy announces, "I'm PREGNANT!"

After eight months of baby-making practice, lots of tantrums, even more tears and a hell of a lot of negative pregnancy tests, I’M PREGNANT!

*Insert olive-sized baby fist pumping in my tummy here*

Am I apparently in the clear and past the sacred 12-week mark?

No. Today I am nine weeks pregnant, and here’s why I’m announcing it early…

I was recently brought to tears by a dear friend of mine; a girl I’d easily call one of my best friends. She was the first person – even before my husband – to know that I was pregnant (live streaming on Snapchat so she could reassure me there was a second line) and I confided in her about my crazy idea to announce my pregnancy to the world earlier than the ‘norm’.

She said, “YES! My family and friends all knew I was pregnant as soon as I pissed on the stick because of the shitty time I went through alone the two miscarriages before.

“I suppose, having been through it twice now, I told everyone I was pregnant very early purely because of the support I NEEDED. It’s fucking lonely and it’s heartbreaking… trying to pretend you were never pregnant.

“I wish I followed someone like you when I was going through it all so I didn’t just feel the need to shut it off.”

That was it. I already knew I wanted to do it. She’d reassured me that I needed to do this.

A photo posted by SOPHIE CACHIA (@theyoungmummy) on May 9, 2016 at 4:06pm PDT

A crazy idea in some ways. But is it really that crazy? Societal norms prevent us from freely announcing pregnancy until after the 12-week mark. Yet, my daily life revolves around sharing incredibly intimate details of my world.  I share sometimes up to five photos a day across my public Instagram and Facebook, and I generally have a Snapchat story running of my entire day. Some would suggest I possibly overshare. Yet, the beautiful thing about it is that I’m the only one who gets to dictate what I think is an appropriate amount of information to give out.

It’s my page and my life.

I didn’t make the decision to tell the world I’m pregnant out of stupidity.

I have had a child before. I am well aware of the risks, and I know it’s simply not the norm.

But who gets to decide the norm for me?

I looked at this idea with the most realistic approach possible. I thought, if something was to go wrong, if I was to experience a miscarriage with this pregnancy – whether it be in the next three weeks or even after – then I would share it anyway.

I would share the heartache, I would share the tears, and I would share my first experience of losing a baby. That’s what The Young Mummy is all about. I put everything on the table – the good and the bad, and through my blog I try to be nothing but brutally honest with the world.

A photo posted by SOPHIE CACHIA (@theyoungmummy) on May 7, 2016 at 4:56pm PDT

I feel like it would be a serious contradiction to everything I’ve ever written about if I spent the next month continuing to lie. I didn’t want to keep lying and continue to hide my pregnancy, but yet we are made to feel like we should.

Can’t we as women have control over our bodies and thus make our own decisions? One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, and women’s silence means that rate is likely to be even higher.

We live in a world where Sally goes to work and her boss says “How’s your week been?” and she says “Yeah, not bad” rathar than “Not too great actually, I unfortunately lost my baby last week”.

Miscarriage does not need to be such a shocking and taboo topic of conversation. We need support, we need encouragement, we need acceptance.

I’m certainly not saying all women SHOULD talk like this, I’m suggesting that it should be OK if they WANT to. And I really don’t want those ideas to get confused.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s completely acceptable that some women decide to keep their matters private, be it the early weeks of their pregnancy or be it a miscarriage.

However, I think it’s a huge problem that society makes some women feel like they have to keep their pregnancies and their miscarriages hidden away.

On a lighter note, when it comes to me and pregnancy, I really have no choice in the matter of when I announce it. Similar to my pregnancy with my son Bobby, people around us knew at about the six week mark.

Mainly because of BOOBS & BUMP.

Yes, that’s right, my udders have already started their job of restocking the shelves and have literally doubled in size already. And despite being in relatively good shape, I’m one of the lucky ducks who ‘shows’ at a stupidly early time, therefore making it physically impossible to hide away for those very long 12 weeks, even if I wanted to.

Secondly, I’m sick as a dog. If you follow me on Snapchat, you might have seen I’ve complained about having the flu for two weeks.

That isn’t a lie, but I haven’t talk about the chunders I’ve been doing everyday, and the disgusting nausea I’m suffering.

For me, the first trimester truly sucks balls.

Although trust me, there’s been no sucking of balls on my behalf. Not only have I lost the ability to stomach any form of solid or liquid, my very active sex drive is MIA.

It’s not only that I think (I know) I’d get motion sickness from a bit of hanky panky, the other day I envisaged what would be worse – chewing on dog food or getting a taste of the peen… I opted for the dog food.

So this is me. A young woman, simply using her every right to announce her pregnancy. And by doing that I’m creating a support network that includes our families, our friends, and yes – you too!

Thank you for coming on this journey with me, and I look forward to the adventures that baby number 2 brings us!

Soph xx

For more from Sophie, you can check out her blog The Young Mummy or follow her on Instagram and Facebook.